Countries

Overview

Mozambique is one of the poorest countries in the world, ranked 172 nd out of 177 countries on the 2007/2008 Human Development Index. The country is prone to a wide range of natural hazards, which regularly cause major damage and disrupt economic growth.

The devastating floods of 2000, 2001, 2007 and 2008 and recurrent droughts in 2002/2003, 2004/2005, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 are recent examples of this trend. All of these have had a major impact on food security. The national adult HIV/AIDS prevalence rate is 16 percent, with four provinces having rates above 20 percent – Gaza in the south has the highest prevalence at 27 percent. Mozambique has a population of 21 million people, including 1.6 million orphans.

Due to the scale and severity of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the number of orphans is increasing. Mozambique remains rooted in deep, rural poverty despite almost a seven percent economic growth rate over the past four years and improvements in education, health and nutrition indicators since the end of the civil war in 1992..

According to the Government of Mozambique, 54 percent of the population lives below the national poverty line; 63 percent of rural children live in absolute poverty; and 34 percent of households are food insecure and face perpetual hunger.

Population density is 20 people per square kilometer, with 66 percent of the population residing in rural areas and subsisting predominantly on agriculture. Mozambique ’s urban population is growing and is expected to exceed 50 percent by 2025. School enrolment rates are as high as 95 percent for the first level of primary education, but they drop drastically to 13 percent for primary grades 6-7. Equally telling are primary school completion rates: 76 percent for grades 1-5 and only 35 percent for grades 6-7.

The vast majority of rural and peri-urban families find it difficult to lose their children’s contribution to the family labor pool by sending them to school, so many children enroll at the beginning of the year, but are forced to drop out and miss classes in order to help with family chores. As a result, Mozambique ’s overall development is hindered by a lack of human resource capacity.

On average, 35 percent of households in Mozambique are considered chronically food insecure (Baseline Study of the National Secretariat for Food Security and Nutrition, 2006). According to the most recent assessment, the provinces with the highest rate of chronic food insecurity were Zambezia (36 percent), Tete (35 percent), Maputo (34 percent) and Inhambane (30 percent).

Following the government-led Food Security and Nutrition Assessment (VAC) in May 2008, which identified 302,000 Mozambicans as acutely food insecure and in need of immediate assistance, the government formally requested WFP to increase its humanitarian assistance in seven provinces until the next harvest in April 2009. The households identified as acutely food insecure were concentrated in provinces that were affected by natural disasters in both 2007 and 2008, including floods in four central provinces along the Zambezi River basin in January/February and severe rainfall deficits (from January until the harvest time in April) causing drought in certain districts of Mozambique’s three southern provinces.

This year's maize harvest is currently underway. An estimate of national production will become available in mid-year.

WFP Activities

WFP is working to connect farmers in Mozambique to markets through the Purchase for Progress initiative. Learn more

The overall objective of WFP in Mozambique is to e nable people to improve their livelihoods and resist future shocks. Emphasis is placed on the crucial role of partnerships and increased Government-led co-ordination and ownership. WFP supports the Government of Mozambique by providing food assistance to some 690,000 people through a range of activities:

• Disaster relief and recovery: At the height of the 2008 flood emergency in central Mozambique , WFP assisted some 200,000 people in support of the Government’s National Institute for Disaster Management (INGC). Based on the government-led May 2008 vulnerability assessment report (VAC) and extensive consultation with district authorities and implementing partners, WFP extended its relief response to reach 250,000 flood and drought victims in seven central and southern provinces – 197,000 in four flood-affected central provinces and 53,000 in three drought-affected southern provinces. The increased response for 250,000 people began in September 2008 and continued through March 2009.
  In 2008, WFP also assisted 60,000 victims of Cyclone Jokwe, which devastated coastal areas in Nampula Province in March. WFP is one of INGC’s principal emergency partners and remains ready to assist the Government in disaster response.
• Livelihood protection and promotion: Under the leadership of National Institute for Disaster Management (INGC) and district authorities, WFP supports community rehabilitation and infrastructure initiatives through food-for-assets (FFA) activities. WFP contributes to building sustainable assets at the community and district levels to facilitate disaster risk reduction and provide a foundation for economic and social development in the most vulnerable districts. FFA activities follow seasonal patterns – peaking during the October–March lean season.
• School Meals: WFP provides food assistance through the national school system to over 250,000 children through the provision of daily school lunches and take-home rations for girls and orphans. The food provides an extra incentive for children from vulnerable families to come to and stay in school. It also helps them to concentrate on their lessons. WFP has agreed with the Ministry of Education and Culture (MEC) for a transfer of responsibility to Government for the secondary boarding school meals programme over the next two years and a consolidation of the day school meals programme in the most food insecure districts.
• Social assistance for HIV/AIDS-affected people: WFP provides community-based support to 43,000 orphans and other vulnerable children and 62,000 AIDS-affected people in home based care programmes. Assistance is provided through the Ministry of Women and Social Action (MMAS) and cooperating partners at the community level. Provincial OVC Committees oversee the identification of beneficiaries.
• Nutritional support for HIV/AIDS patients: Through the Ministry of Health (MISAU) and several clinical health NGOs, WFP provides food assistance to 60,000 mothers enrolled in PMTCT programmes and chronically ill people following antiretroviral treatment (ART) for HIV/AIDS and other illnesses. Food support provides a nutritional supplement to patients for greater nutritional and health wellbeing and drug tolerance, and also represents an incentive for regular attendance and participation in treatment services. WFP support is provide primarily in urban areas in the South and along the Beira to Zimbabwe and Tete to Malawi transport corridors.
• Nutrition rehabilitation for malnourished children: WFP, UNICEF and the Ministry of Health (MISAU) manage a tripartite nutrition rehabilitation programme for roughly 7,500 moderately malnourished children under five. Nutritionally fortified food commodities are provided to needy children through district health centers.
• High Food Prices Soaring global food prices during the first half of 2008 compelled the Government of Mozambique to divert meagre resources from development activities to meet urgent import needs – Mozambique annually imports 890,000 tons of cereals. High food and fuel prices may jeopardize national development gains of the past few years and may threaten food security and social stability. The Ministry of Agriculture reported that the price of maize rose an average of 102 percent between August 2007 and August 2008 – as high as 178 percent in one province – while rice, beans and vegetable oil also saw drastic rises over the same period. A recent review conducted by the Ministry of Planning and Development (MPD), with support from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, concluded that rising food prices could cause poverty levels to rise dramatically, particularly in urban areas and in southern Mozambique where populations rely less on subsistence farming and where the decline of purchasing power is felt more significantly because of a higher demand for market products.
  In collaboration with donors and UN agencies, the Government of Mozambique has elaborated a National Action Plan to mitigate the impact of the high food prices. The Action Plan is two-pronged: a) short to long-term economic growth and increased agricultural production; and b) short and medium-term social protection schemes through income and commodity transfers for the most vulnerable. At the request of the President of Mozambique, the UN Country Team has developed a complementary response strategy that focuses on social protection. As part of the concerted UN effort to support the Government of Mozambique’s response to the high food price crisis, a Government/UN working group proposes several immediate and medium-term measures to mitigate the impact on the most vulnerable populations and to prevent them from resorting to impoverishing coping mechanisms and risking their health and nutritional well-being. Proposed response interventions that may be implemented with WFP support include: a) social assistance for unemployed urban youth through a cash/voucher for work programme, orphaned and vulnerable children (OVC) and HIV/AIDS-affected people;b) health and nutrition rehabilitation of malnourished children and HIV patients; and c) sustained education support for selected secondary boarding schools in urban areas in 2009.
• Local Procurement and Purchase for Progress (P4P) Based on a commitment to efficient and cost-effective delivery of food assistance and to the development of the local agricultural economy in Mozambique , WFP endeavors to purchase as much food within Mozambique as possible. Local purchase supports the Government’s national poverty reduction strategy by providing markets for basic food commodities grown by semi-subsistence rural farm families. In 2007, WFP purchased 46,000 tons of local food commodities for US$13 million, a record amount for local procurement in Mozambique. In 2008, WFP bought 33,000 at a cost of over US$14 million.
  As part of WFP’s global Purchase for Progress (P4P) Initiative, WFP is implementing a five-year project aimed at assisting Mozambican farmers to produce and sell greater food surpluses and thereby increase their incomes. WFP aims to procure at least 22,000 tons of cereals and pulses directly from farmers’ organizations and small traders between 2008 and 2013. P4P in Mozambique will be implemented within the framework of the “Delivering as One” UN reform initiative, and will form a major component of the joint programme between WFP, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Ministries of Agriculture and Industry and Trade entitled “Building Commodity Value Chains and Market Linkages for Farmers’ Associations”.
• ‘Delivering as One’ UN reform initiative As Mozambique is a pilot country for the “Delivering as One” UN reform initiative, WFP participates in the development and implementation of six of the eleven joint programmes and supports the UN system in the areas of information and communication technology (ICT), operations management and communications.